Balloon Wars 2023!!!

[PhotonWrangler]

• ASM-135 was developed, successfully tested, yet supposedly never deployed
• RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 has ASM capabilities, and successfully destroyed an NRO satellite in 2008
• The X-37 has been doing some ... interesting yet classified ... things in orbit with 6 missions thus far ranging from 224 to 908 days performing unusual maneuvers; the potential to neutralize satellites is but one of many tricks it may have available

A Kessler Syndrome if we're not careful, which could render most or all orbits useless. In addition to the two US missions, Russian and Chinese ASM missions have contributed to thousands of pieces of hazardous space junk.

Thanks for that link to the Kessler Syndrome article. It was interesting and a little scary. f course the thing that jumped out at me was the mention of a Laser Broom. I've got to wonder how practical that would be.

 

[chillinn]

A Kessler Syndrome if we're not careful, which could render most or all orbits useless.

the mention of a Laser Broom. I've got to wonder how practical that would be.

Kessler Syndrome, as bad as it could get, would not be a permanent condition, but there's very little discussion of how long it would last. It may last hundreds of years or possibly longer, but not for millennia. Orbits decay, and how long they take to decay is a function of orbit height, which itself is a function of velocity. If LEO was in a state of Kessler Syndrome, those orbits would become available again for use faster than the condition in higher orbits. And if Kessler Syndrome was confined to LEO, the higher orbits wouldn't be affected, though the opposite is not true. A Kessler Syndrome in higher orbits would eventually encompass all lower orbits.